Photovoltaic Devices

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In the last two years we have witness for the first time significant drop in the cost of photovoltaic devices to less than $1/Wp with cumulative installations rises to 102GW in 2012 and an estimated worldwide revenue of $134 billion by 2020. This was the result of years of intensive research into lowering the cost of materials while improving the efficiency and stability through innovative structural designs of the solar cells.

I will cover in this talk some key design principles that determine and limit the performance of solar cells. To absorb every available photon from the solar spectrum and collect every photo-generated carrier in the active layer, we need to understanding factors that contribute to the optical and electrical losses in the different layers of a typical solar cell structure.

Reducing reflections using sub-wavelength structures formed by interference lithography will be presented.Structures with period smaller than the wavelength of light exhibit excellent anti-reflection behavior over broader wavelengths and large incident angles. The recent development in performance enhancement through the use of nano-pyramids and nanoparticles on silicon based solar cells will be discussed.

Fabrication technologies developed at our Nanofabrication laboratory will be illustrated and characterisation of efficient textured silicon solar cells will be presented.